


Dušamanûðân Uruš

by Arnediad



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: A New Years surprise, Dystheism, Morbidity, Multi, Numbers are meant to represent stages and not Ages of Arda, Some Anachronistic Dialogue, aromantic elements combined with metaphysical romantic elements, basically chronological narrative, but also Mairon figuring things out post mortem, dependent/codependent elements, metaphorical analogy, probably been done before, semi lyrical poetry, semi-poetic format, some violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:13:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28415190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arnediad/pseuds/Arnediad
Summary: In the ceaseless dim,a star is born, on the edges of the light.It is edged with fire and wonder--and a great voice thunders-'-awaken from the night'.
Relationships: Morgoth Bauglir | Melkor/Sauron | Mairon
Comments: 3
Kudos: 7





	Dušamanûðân Uruš

**Author's Note:**

> **Brief Blurb:** This was months of composition for me, especially poetically. Some of the separating stanzas are lyrical, but it's kind of up to you how to interpret them. I love poetry, so bringing that into ficwork has been a insurmountable joy, especially when it comes to formatting poetry in three tongues. I have been so excited to share this, Ná merye I turuhalmeri!

  
_~~I:~~_ Eä

_In the ceaseless dim,_   
_a star is born, on the edges of the light._   
_It is edged with fire and wonder-_   
_-and a great voice thunders-_   
**_'-awaken from the night'._ **

* * *

From Unbeing into Being.

He remembers it vaguely, like it is something in a dream...or a vision. It is a sense of void, of darkness and nothingness. There is the vague semblance of spinning in an endless drop, of the wheel of constellations above; somewhat like astral thresholds...somewhat like pinholes in the fabric of oblivion. He knows he did not have a Name then, certainly not. Most assuredly not like he had had many names in times to come; some of them fairer, some of them fouler. The endless expanse of the Before of him was a thing limitless and yet narrow; like falling down a well with no bottom. It was a collective impression of being empty space; a thing almost ferrofluid in its nature...but without the visual assumption of viscosity. And perhaps that was not even his state of Unbeing, but the split-second, infinitesimally microscopic iota of time where he was both; alive and not...traversing the road between being a thought-a concept, perhaps-and a creation.

These recollections are myopic at best, however.

To some, being born from a Song is a strange concept, but not to him. He is not physical...not in the sense that the Eldar are physical or other counterparts made by the Valar. But he has also never felt it necessary to describe himself beyond a certain extent...beyond the limitations of comprehension...and perhaps that has been for the best. Nevertheless, he was Sung. In the fires of Aulë’s forge, in the song of Ainulindalë, he was composed and brought into being...in a great and shimmering heat that threaded through the fabric of what-was-of-Arda. Bedrock and mantle...crust and core; the downward plunge of a vein of copper...deep into the earth, into iron-laced soil to the very heartbeat of all that was and ever would be. His ‘birth’ was that of the upward heave of magma...of the skin-searing, breath-stealing shower of an ash cloud and his awareness was _out_ and _of_...of _all_ he could create and the wonder that came with such immediate opportunity was a reel of euphoric color and raptorous astonishment. 

Beyond such color was his creator.

Mairon was-at the time-a being created not only to form but to serve, and so his initial inclinations to serve Aulë were those borne from a simplistic adulation. It would not have been unfair to compare it to the way a child blindly loves their parents, and believes whatever they tell them...no matter how far-fetched or fantastical it may be. So blind was he that he could not see that Aulë was equally blind in his devotion to Ilúvatar. He did not question his purpose, nor did he question his being. And so beautiful _was_ ‘being’; in that new and spring-bright time. It mattered not what he was tasked to do...only that he did it with the Song he knew so well. Every verse, every stanza, it was that of Formation, and in burning brightness so did he create alongside his brethren. In a wild yet orderly cacophony Arda was chorused into existence in the verdant...wheeling starscape that was Eä. And so he did love such order, more than the somewhat lackadaisical and blooming chaos that others of his kind seemed to create. So he loved the ringing of the forge...the Vision of that-which-could-be; as pristine and clarion as the peal of silver bells.

Yet more beautiful was Arda in its Spring.

How much the world he had so desired to bring to some semblance of order had changed in years and ages that would come. But those early years, like the smelting of raw iron, like the bud of a leaf formed on a tree, were sweet in ways he would never know again. The lamps were a warm...glimmered expanse of luminescence on things barely formed. And a Song, perhaps many songs, was wrought throughout it all. It was not music in the way some might define it; no plucking of strings or whimsical tune to stir the spirits. Nay, the Song of Aþāraphelūn Amanaišāl was in what those who dwelt there later would call the sounds of nature. It was in the scent of fresh spring loam carried over a hill, in the cool of a winter breeze, in the crunch of frost beneath a foot. Melodic, the nuance of a stream over round, mirror-smooth rocks in a brook, in the bubble and froth of clear water, and the rumble of boulder and mountain wed in downward descent...in the tumble of life. All of these things, he learned to love; perhaps not in the nature of their Making, or who they were Made from, but in their vitality and separateness.

 _”Looketh upon our creation…”_ Aulë’s voice was the shimmer of heat above molten iron...the roll and ring of hammer, shape, and Song. _”Dost thou not see the beauty we create, the beauty Ainulindalë has created,...in the name of Eru Ilúvatar?_

For what now seems like a mere moment, he did see it. Mairon saw the glimpse of the Arda that could have been.

Then, of course, came Melkor.

* * *

 _ ~~II:~~_ _'Aþāra';Akašān;_  
 _’iniðila:rušura_  
 _ithīrphelûna māχan,_  
 _šebetha: ibria.’_

_‘Appointed’, He says,_   
_‘of lily, of fire._   
_of light-dwelling authority,_   
_of air, of silver.’_

* * *

Mairon is not fully certain when his vision of what Arda could be was so altered.

Perhaps it was when he saw Melkor raise the oceans to great and fantastical heights...near as high as he was tall, only to bring them crashing down on golden shores to wipe away that which he and his brethren had formed. Maybe it was when Aulë and Tulkas quarreled over what to do with their wayward brother. Aulë was forever afeared of what bringing Melkor to heel would require of the world they had so painstakingly made. Tulkas was less kid-gloved and reticent...and the others seemed equally as torn. They protected Almaren, but in truth, Melkor seemed to have little interest in it. Instead, he razed that which surrounded it far and wide whenever they tried to make more of it. Carelessly, he did so...like their Making was a thing of negligence...a thing disdainful and without meaning. A flick of a metaphysical finger and mountains were brought to dust; the stones Mairon had helped to form in their organic and raw beauty naught but crumbled ash. Anger, at the time, was foreign to him, so he only felt bewildered. Bewildered, and somewhere in a state that insisted he must bring _order_ to this...by any means, for this was his nature. In some ways, his need for order was what fostered his impression that the Valar and Maiar he surrounded himself with were weak.

Melkor was strong, he surmised, but he would need to be brought to heel.

How wrong he was...to think he could look upon the screaming opulence of pandemonium and not think, even for a second, that it was beautiful.

_"Thou hath a spirit of fire.”_

And how wrong he was, to think that Melkor could not be as seductive as he was destructive.

_"Flame-hair...I wouldst cherish thee beyond the scope of those who claim to know thee…”_

He told himself that he spoke to Melkor out of an idle curiosity. It was forbidden, of course, in that semi-reticent, loose-fisted way that things were forbidden then. He knew that _Aulë_ knew where he was going. While Aulë did not approve, he was deeply embattled with his belief in free will and his knowledge of what should and should not Be. Aulë, in retrospect, was likely one of the few people who might have understood him. It was, after all, Aulë who had fashioned his own children because he was too impatient to wait for the Minnónar. Návatar-as he was later called-had as much a desire to create and care, to give order and balance to that which was his own as Mairon did. Mairon, however, did not consider the fact that Eru might have spared whatever he created like he did for Aulë. He only knew he wanted what was his, much like Melkor had Chaos, which was Melkor’s. If Melkor could create such disorder, he surmised indignantly, then so too should he be allowed to create his own order. No one, after all, did very much to stop Melkor. Surely then, it would be wise to befriend him...to know him, in case he should ever have need of his counsel...even if he very much doubted it.

So he spoke to him...and _in_ speaking to him he found a sharp...if somewhat stubborn mind behind the tar-thick Chaos that seemed to encompass every part of him. It was a burning, iron-cold and diamond-like thing...but also slow...like honey. There was a rich, nectarous-bitter nature to He-who-was-so-unlike-the-others. Like smoke and ash...but with the undertone of ice formed from freshwater...cool and clear and bottomless...in snowy mountains not yet Sung into being. Mairon didn’t, not truly, realize how _vast_ Melkor was before he was directly in front of him...his own brightness dimmed before the great cosmic billow that was the One many would come to fear and abhor. A steely, imposing monolith of a being...a presence unbound by any fetter; a monstrous beauty. And each time he left, he Forgot, and each time he returned...he Remembered.

_“I have great plans for this world, O’ bright one.”_

How beautiful the names that fell from Melkor’s tongue...like the sweet of dew when it lands just right, upon the stigma of a honeysuckle flower...waiting to be kissed by the hummingbird.

_”I would share them...with thee, I wouldst.”_

When he declared his loyalty to his liege before all and left for Utumno, Melkor’s eyes were so very bright, and yet at once eclipse-like...event horizon and black hole. They spoke of a great and terrible wonder, of mountains thrusting through the clouds so they should pierce the very heavens, of the fire-flowers in the earth dancing forth to consume the Gardens so carefully built only to build new ones...of silver and gold, of iron and steel...of things cold and eternal; not fragile, short-lived, and weak. So caught was he...in the roiling tempest of That-Which-he-Adored, Aulë’s warning seemed negligible. And he had warned him...his creator. Standing by the forge, dirtied and as ‘ungodly’ as he ever was, Aulë had looked at Mairon with sadness, yet calmness.

 _"In time…”_ Aulë had grumbled, his voice like fire and stone. _”In time I think thou wilt discover the true nature of He to which thy binds.”_

 _"And what”_ Mairon had scoffed. _”Wouldst such a nature be?”_

 _Of Naught”_ was the simplistic response. _”Mine brother is not so much of what he creates, but of those that wouldst createth for him.”_ Those eyes of the forge...not so different from his own, affixed to him but a moment. _”I pray that thee discovers this not too late, but I fear thee will not.”_

Mairon disregarded it, of course. He disregarded it, and returned to Utumno and stood before the great black throne and declared his Fëa vindicated. Vindicated...and when the cloud that was Melkor rose, in a dark song, to thread its tendrils of light through It that was Him-and then abruptly Them-in its entirety...it was a sensation of fullness. It was a burning, blinding flower...a rose of Fëar intermingled; and the touch of warmth...that forbidden warmth, in that soul-place that felt at once terrible and terribly secret. A trembling crescendo; up, up, _up,_ and he could not _see_ beyond the greatness that was his discovery of this union, of this _Them_. It only seemed right that he should protect it, that he should hold it close to him, that he should serve it because surely, this was what Making should be. It should feel like this...insurmountable, blasphemous yet fragile, a dark heresy that was both a denouncement and a religion unto its own.

Mairon did not, and does not know, when he grew to love Melkor...in ways that beings of air, earth, water, and fire should not love.

He only knows it cost him everything.

* * *

 _ ~~III:~~_ _Hláriéla caitar i mordor,_  
 _fana ta calima, or cemen úanar,_  
 _lyen sís liri-mme; encarina,_  
 _ata-mána, penquanta ar ambe._

_Having heard the shadows lie,_   
_white figured, over an earth without a sun,_   
_to thee here we sing; remade,_   
_double-blessed, full to the brim and more._

* * *

A thing of functional perfection.

Perhaps a dream...perhaps a moment of opportunity not necessarily wasted, but gone too quickly. Mairon’s initial years in Melkor’s service were that of euphoric bliss. Utumno was, if vast and sometimes prone to upheaval, flawless in its execution of dominance. It was the vision that he had longed for, upon seeing his Master create such Chaos; Chaos turned to machination. The creation, the collective purpose and vision was beyond what he could ever hope to have achieved. He had not, admittedly, initially anticipated that Melkor would comprehend or understand his desire to bring things to order. The dark Vala had, however, risen beyond his expectations by encouraging him in his endeavors. Looking back on it, Mairon is not entirely sure if he wanted such rigid focus because he desired control, or if it was because Melkor’s destruction of what he had created with his brethren had made it clear that control was required and the other Valar were too weak and reticent to do so.

In the end, it didn’t matter, because it was perfect.

Such years are embedded in his memory because it was the closest that he and Melkor ever were, or ever would be. It was true that the creatures he and his Master Sung into Being were ‘oft not of the ilk of the other Valar. They were darker, fiercer, and far crueler.

_”What thou calleth cruelty, I calleth strength.”_

He does not know, really, what in the end drew him to creatures such as the Valaraukar, or the orcs. Perhaps it was their displacement, their uncertainty, and their great love of all things in flame and dust. Other creatures They created, of course, but the Balrogs and the orcs were the most successful, and their Singing and Seduction was most embedded in his memory. It was true, yes, that he was more among their creations than Melkor, but this was only proper, as Lieutenant. Likewise, in later years, he was more among prisoners, more among people and so the dialect of the Valar was somewhat antiquated to him beyond a certain point. This, Melkor allowed. It surprised him, because he had assumed the Vala would always want to be spoken to with veneration and formality, but it seemed that Melkor was more interested in furthering their purpose...at least during that time, and so he thrived in both his instruction, his creation, and his learning. Vast were his forges, in the belly of Utumno, the glow of iron and fire was so great those who were not used to the heat could not bear to tread there. Weapons, he forged, of the ilk that had never been seen before, and were never seen again.

When Utumno fell, he grieved.

Mairon grieved, and at times he attempted to rebuild when the Valar weren’t looking. He attempted, but he was not, in his singularity, quite strong enough to erect a fortress of such magnitude in his Lord’s absence. And so he worked on their outer fortress, in great secret. In solitude save for the minions he and Melkor had created, the Maia amassed a great and terrible army that he hid beneath the earth until his Master’s return...dreaming of the day he would come through the doors. The world outside shifted...it bent and became greatly changed, but he merely waited. Angband, it was called, and he took great pride in its management, in careful governance.

Of course, Melkor returned.

He returned, and with him he brought three jewels. Great were they, seated atop his forehead, and Mairon, sat upon the throne could only gawk at their magnificence. In time, of course, he would learn to hate them, for they were the Silmarils. But adorning Melkor’s head they were a shining greatness that was only an augment to the greatness already present. Mairon had bowed...he'd stepped away from the throne _immediately_ and bowed...deep and low, in great relief and adoration, and Melkor put a hand on his head and told him he had ‘done well.’ And then, as calmly as he had praised him, Morgoth beckoned for Gothmog to hand him his fire-whip.

And then, Mairon was leaned over the throne, in full view of their subjects and allies, and thrashed nearly to death for his _‘attempted usurpation.’_

* * *

_~~IV:~~ Ma istan le, Melda tár? _   
_Hríve taltie mi orontilmar._   
_Mal losselóti firir úrenen;_   
_nwalc'arma cilima_   
_i lornar, ambe ily-o._

_Do I know you, beloved king?_   
_Winter has fallen in our mountains._   
_But the snow-flowers fade in the heat;_   
_a cruel ray of sunlight dividing_   
_those asleep, most of all._

* * *

One of his greatest joys was creating hröar.

Not because it allowed him a physical form, though that was in of itself an experience. Nay, Mairon loved creating hröar because of the forms he could shape for himself. It was a different artistry, but a necessary one in later years, particularly in Angband. The form he would take the most during the First Age, however, was that which he saw as the physical embodiment of himself; the flame-haired being...tall and imposing with burning eyes and a wicked smirk. Later, when the Ñoldor came from the Utter West to wage war for their Silmarils, it was a form in which he could render them dumbstruck and speechless...so obsessed were they with all things fair and beautiful. A hand to a cheek, a purred word in an ear and the peoples of the Eldar were but jelly-legged scum in his presence. They did what he wished...until he hurt them, and then they were in too much pain to do anything otherwise, so it did not matter.

Only one of his prisoners was strong enough to resist him, and it was the one who came in semblance of parley only to be taken and tortured like the others. The one they called Nelyafinwë, he was, and he came with a warning. In a dungeon, Mairon threw him...and in that dungeon he determined to eke every last drop of vital information; but his prisoner would not talk, save to tell him, in no certain terms, that all was lost.

 _"You cannot see it”_ Maitimo had groaned, late, late into the night when Mairon had taken up some dirks, as he traced over pale musculature until he found a place that would bite deep...that would sink, into skin, bone, and marrow like the sink of teeth into ripe fruit. _”Ai, you cannot see it, but my father's jewels, they drive a sickness into those who desire them.”_

Withdrawing the aforementioned heft of a dirk...watching as rubicund congealed and sluiced around dark metal, Mairon had lifted the scarlet-wrung weapon to the light of a torch, where the flame could dance across rose-colored droplets.

 _“My Lord is not mad”_ he’d murmured idly, barely listening.

 _ **"Look at me”**_.  
  
He had...and perhaps he should not have...but he looked. Chained to the wall, wild snarls of red hair billowed about his visage and torso, a mere mortal in his eyes, the one christened Russandol was an example of Shaping done rightly. Beautiful, he was, but not so beautiful that his hardness and coldness was masked by the softness of his lack of flaw. Scars...he had, aplenty, and the chisel of his jaw was a thing made not just of beauty, but of a great strength of Fëa. It was a shame, Mairon had reflected sardonically, that one so strong should come with a burden that made him so ill and so abhorrently ugly. His strength fed such sickness...like a circuit...and with each pass of black oblivion...he closed in on himself.

 _“Little I know”_ the one the Enemy called Maitimo had said desperately, steely eyes wide and pained. _“Little I have lived, but acts I have committed I would give myself to Mandos to forget, yet I cannot.”_ A twitch, a full-body muscular spasm and Mairon had acknowledged, somewhat vaguely, that his prisoner did not have much time left in the world no matter what he would wish for. _”Love”_ was the thick continuation. _”Melessë, it is not worth losing. It is not worth losing what you love for that which you desire.”_ Mairon had scoffed even as Maitimo suddenly looked beyond his already great years. _”I would know”_ the disgusting creature had whispered. _”I do know what it is to lose and know you will always lose in the face of your obsession. So heed me, and if you do not heed me, remember these words.”_

 _ **”Rehtiëintyë”**_.

He escaped, of course.

Maedhros escaped, and Mairon thought very little of his words. _Gorthaur_ they called him, in those times...and he relished the title because it meant that he was feared, and within that fear he could call up order. To only one...was he weak...and it was the one that never truly fashioned his own...solidified hröa. Melkor had semblances of form, of course. None of those forms were greater than the imposing figure atop the Throne in Angband...the blaze of the Silmarils like that of a thousand stars. Great, for a time, was his Lord then...great beyond measure.

It did not matter, Mairon told himself, that he shut himself away for longer and longer periods of time to gaze at the jewels. Nor did it matter that he began to accuse all that were close to him of treachery. Surely a leader must have cause to question his subjects, to keep them light of foot and alert. And surely, when the ache in his Fëa was so strong he could not ignore it, when that primordial part of him that desired the recognition and praise only an Ayanûz could give rose up and demanded he twine with Melkor’s ëalar, surely the fact that Melkor seemed wholly distracted was merely due to how much they still had to accomplish. And, of course, Melkor possessed a little bit of each of his siblings, so gifted was he. And when Mairon’s spirit arced in primordial ecstasy, in a Song of that which was Bright and humming in his veins, so did he hear the Songs of Aulë...of all the others. He was not proud of such a need, and Melkor never did seem to bond with him in a way that was reciprocal, but it was enough.

It had to be enough.

In years to come Mairon would learn to steele himself behind a visage of iron...particularly when the Silmarils were stolen and Melkor went utterly mad. In truth...he himself saw no value in the Silmarils. Beautiful they were, yes, but the answer to all that ever was, certainly not. So when his Lord raged against the Sons of Feanor, against his brothers, against what seemed like the very earth itself and, often times, against _him_ , a part of Mairon vibrated in a confused and dysregulated space that was as much panic as it was confusion.

_”Dost thou not see how it pains me?! Thou dost fail, oer and oer to bringeth back that which is mine, dost thou not love thy Lord as thou should?”_

_”My lord, I do love you, I love you beyond what I think you have the capability to comprehe-”_

**_"-Do not dare to patronize me!”_ **

Oh, did Mairon love.

And oh, what that love would cost him.

A distance became apparent between them...even before the great, cataclysmic end of their shared rule. Melkor left to corrupt the Atani and he went on to capture Tol Sirion. Thuringwethil became his confidant, though she was, in truth, no substitute for his Master. There was Dagor Bragollach, his duel with Finrod, his many, many accomplishments with the werewolves. Lúthien and Huan spelled his defeat...his shame and his horror at failing He who he had only desired to please. He heard nothing from Melkor...had heard nothing for so long, he had begun to acknowledge his impermanence. And then Melkor was declared defeated, and did not, immediately, call him to his side, or ask to speak to him.

And then he did not say good-bye.

And then Mairon was heartbroken...but he told himself that love was weak, that he had loved wrongly, as a Maia should not.

And then he went mad.

* * *

_~~V;~~ Astarieldanen vasarya pollen_   
_anar aurendeo, i súri raique_   
_etyallen, tyarnen ohta rávea_   
_imbe ear laica ar luine telume,_   
_ruine ánen ungon naira patacanda_

_I have bedimm'd_  
 _the noontide sun, call'd forth the mutinous winds._  
 _And 'twixt the green sea and the azured vault,_  
 _set roaring war: to the dread rattling thunder..._  
 _...have I given fire *****_ **'**

* * *

Few recollections he has of the time following Melkor’s fall.

He is not, truthfully, entirely sure what he desired during that time, only that some part of him assimilated Melkor’s desire for domination and chaos with his desire for order and then proceeded to plow forward with the concept so harshly he was stripped of himself by the time his tower fell. There was a time, briefly, when he perhaps wanted to rebuild what had been destroyed. A flickering flame of the Maia he had once been kindled to life for but a brief stretch of time. For a second-in the fabric of the existence he would endure-he found himself. Not in the service of anyone, merely in the service of Making...but it crumbled...and he ploughed on. He did not rest, nor did he stop as he once might have before. His failure to serve Melkor, he determined, would not happen again. It did not matter if Melkor was not there, he was there in spirit. Mairon took over the seduction of men, he mingled with the dwarves and negotiated with the elves. He waged subtle political battles and outright assaults...like Celebrimbor and the Rings of Power, the Númenóreans and the drowning of Númenór.

A normal person, he supposed, would feel regret for such actions.

He had, inevitably, destroyed an entire Kingdom, tortured a good part of another and tried to enslave its subjects and killed one of its greatest smithies and then carried his body around on a pike shot through with arrows. It occurs to him now that such destruction was more of Melkor’s method than his. The Mairon of the First Age would at least have had the sense not to attack Valinor. He was-in truth-not entirely sure where such a ridiculous idea had come from...but the sense of waste in his mind, the howling yearning to Make...to Make something that would please _someone_ was a discord in the melody of his existence that he simply could not tolerate within reasonable means. He was lonely not in person but in spirit and he did not, truthfully, know what his purpose would have been had he chosen not to follow Melkor. Perhaps he’d been meant to wander as the others did. Perhaps he’d been meant to remain in Valinor.

Losing his hröar was less a thing of tragedy as it was a thing of pain.

Not because he could no longer assume beautiful forms, but because in taking that ability, so was taken some of his power, and therefore some of himself. It was not-unlike taking a human’s face. For one needs a mouth with which to speak, ears with which to hear, and eyes with which to see...but if all are so grotesquely disfigured that they make anyone who beholds them wrought with fear...there is ultimately not much use for them. He could no longer parley with the elves, not in physical form for they found him abhorrent. There were times when he admired his adversaries, particularly when he walked among them. Mairon was not wont to dismiss the value of something merely because it did not support his views. It was, in small part, why he had sought to enslave the elves and others in the first place. He knew, without question, that they would not follow him willingly.

At the very least, they wouldn’t have if they knew who he was.

And so he could not hide, not truly. And so he was further alone, save for his creations, and while his creations and his quests to fulfill some purpose were steadfast, it was not the same. When Isildur took his Ring it was just another blow among thousands of blows...but it was a blow as much to his power as it was to his person. And so Sauron-as he had been dubbed for a long time by then-withdrew to the darkness...to plot...to plan and to fester until he could dream of a way of putting things to order once more. So long was he in this dark-dreaming state that when news of the Ring reached him again, he pursued it like a thing possessed...and perhaps he was. For there was no joy in rebuilding his armies, not this time. There was no great satisfaction in seeing the ranks increase tenfold...in seeing black and red banners, in the command of the thousands at his disposal. Craven, he was, at the end...for something that forever seemed to slip between his fingers to shatter into the earth.

When his Tower fell to the Earth...he felt anger.

It was far, away, however, and further eclipsed by a feeling of _relief_.

Then he felt nothing.

And perhaps that was what he had been searching for all along.

* * *

_~~VI:~~ i undume-nna hairo helinille_   
_quasayë isapta hlarunyava_   
_cilima pirucendea; linge_   
_pollen etyalle valatë,_   
_hyandyë vello_

_in the deepest part of remote violet_   
_I shake the grave from my ears._   
_dividing on toe points,_   
_I was able to call forth pride,_   
_and cleave from us._

* * *

When he first awoke, he did not know where he was.

The Great Steps leading up to Mandos’ Halls, after all, are a place that very few return to tell the tale of. Now, of course, seated in the very depths before the throne of yet another Vala, he cannot help but think that this is where he always ends up...inevitably. The walls around him are marble but seem boundless...dotted with pillars that seem almost mimicked by mirrors to give the illusion of going on and on into eternity. He knows better, of course, than to think that it is but a parlor trick; Mandos would never be so frivolous. Above...he can just barely see what he supposes is the sky in a part of Eä...wheeling with constellations and a thin, silver thread that he knows-somehow, intrinsically-is a line of marching souls. The clouds are shot through and darkened with magic he cannot begin to comprehend...and the sea, though far, surrounds it all and it is inky black and without limit. It is cold but not in the way that he would normally associate weather with frigidity. Instead, it is a frozen impression of hallowed emptiness, and this is only reflected in greater proportion by the individual sitting before him.

**”You did not expect to come here.”**

Mairon winces at the voice, not necessarily due to its volume but its nature. It is a grating, scraping thing; a bit of shovel and soil, a bit of the blind things that crawl in the earth. In a way, it is beautiful, but only in the old, of-nature-way things can be beautiful. Mandos’ voice is that of decay...of wither and forgottenness but he does not hate it.

“No,” he says shortly.

 **”You expected the same Fate as your Sire”** is the amused continuation, and Mairon steels himself against the subtle mockery. **”Mairon, that would have been too _easy_.”**

“Aulë was my sire,” he replies.

 **”You chose otherwise”** Mandos’ voice hardens but a moment; becomes less soft worms and rot and more fossil in nature. **”It will not do you well here to tell yourself anything other than the truth.”**

“Am I dead?!” Mairon demands. “Am I to be judged?!”

 **”You are of a kind of Unbeing”** is the grave-soil-soft counter. **”You are no longer of the world. Perhaps, someday, you will be of the world again.”**

“Plague me not with vague periphrasis” the Maia snarls. “Tell me _what this is_.”

Not-eyes turn upwards...wrinkle with a kind of age-old amusement. It is not gentle, nor is it sympathetic, merely vaguely humored.

 **”Ever beleaguered”** Mandos hums contemplatively. **”Ever thoughtful, ever cunning and ever purposeful, but never quite _sure_.”** When Mairon looks disgusted the Vala laughs and it is like several thousand death rattles. **”Do I have you rightly, Maia?”** Upon receiving nothing in response, a great, dark head shakes. **”Would you _like_ to be sure?”**

“I don’t know what you mea-” Mairon begins to hiss, but stops when the Vala before him gestures in a great sweep of stars and darkness.

The area before him, just to the right of the throne, shifts...contorts in a vortex-like motion before exploding outwards. His initial reaction is to retreat...and he does by several feet until he realizes he is looking into a hole. Not an ordinary hole...however...a monolith...hulking blackness that seems to extend forever. And it does, he realizes numbly, for it is the Void...and within that Void is the vague...faraway shape of someone familiar and yet no longer familiar.

Melkor is chained, once again, with Angainor.

He is chained, but he appears to have lost none of his godly luster. Indeed, the blackness that emanates from him is far darker than that of the Void, edged in silver and bathed in that unearthly light that he always seemed to carry with him. Mairon cannot bring himself to speak...he can only bring himself to look. And in that looking he grasps onto the longing, the confusion and sadness, the desperation and fierce loyalty that has plagued him for so long. It is an ache so deep, so permanently embedded in his Fëa that he does not know if it will ever heal. It is the reason he discarded Celebrimbor so easily, the reason he could never let go, could never stop, and could never move on.

_“Hast thou brought the Silmarils?”_

It is such an absurd statement Mairon doesn’t understand it at first. Indeed, he is initially only able to latch onto the deep roll of Melkor’s voice. Because he missed it...because he has longed for it. In the hours, the cold hours working in empty fortresses, devoid of the roiling cavort of yore he had near-hallucinated it in his desperation for nearness. On the brinks of oblivion...his soul wheeling into the abyss, Mairon could only think of Melkor.

And Melkor can only think of the Silmarils.

“I have not.”

The answer forces itself from his lips in numb acknowledgment of the fruitlessness of his affections. Silver eyes flash to him...seem to realize him for the first time...but the tenderness that floods through them he now sees is a facsimile to the fact that Melkor ultimately feels very little for him.

“Tell me” Mairon rasps. “Do you have no love for me, my Lord?”

It takes a long time for Melkor to answer...too long.

 _"Thou were't loyal"_ is the rumbled, cacophonous reply, only magnified now by the Halls, the Void and their billowing emptiness.

"Aye," Mairon says in a half-laugh. "I was, and I _died_ for it." Blazing eyes are veiled behind near-translucent lids; their glow still apparent through the very thin epidermis. "I chased you...across worlds, across continents, I served you, I watched you go mad, and still I served you when you were disgraced and thrown into the Void. I served you until my fëa was twisted beyond recognition, and then I served you even when I did not know who or what I was.”

“ _ **Thou** wert Our purpose”_ is the incredulous, booming response. “And all they who followed us; for the sake of the world...for the bright Trifold brilliance that Curufinwë made but did not comprehend nor appreciate.”

Equally incredulous is the laugh the Maia returns in full force.

“You have not learnt anything, have you?!” he exclaims. “And you will never learn anything, never. Not until you comprehend that it’s not _about_ doing whatever you wish, it’s also about _seeing_ all of it...seeing _through_ yourself.” Those eyes do not change, and the small, miniscule but desperately loyal part of him wavers in the absence that he cannot _see_ but has always been there.

It wavers...and is extinguished.

“You will never see it,” he says hoarsely. “Because you cannot look beyond your scorn of that which is not akin to your vision of what should be. You are equally as terrible as Eru, but you cannot see it.” Again, he whispers it, breathlessly. “And _I_ will always love what I hoped you could be,” Mairon continues in a choked voice. “But that is an illusion, I see that now, and I must let it go.”

 _“And why dost thou choose such a path?”_ Melkor’s voice carries the semblance of anger, but there is an emptiness behind it that wounds Mairon far more than his rage ever could.

"The answer to that is simple'' he replies; a gesture on the edge of anger that dies and becomes a limp twitch of a hand. "You presented to me, in crystal clarity, that your obsession with fictitiousness was more important than our collective vision. And I," the redheaded Maia says tiredly. "I am, at the end of the day, steadfast in _my_ decision not to abandon myself like everyone else has."

 _“Thou art Chaos”_ Melkor protests.

Standing before he-who-was-once-his-Lord, Mairon’s shoulders slump.

“I do not like Chaos,” he replies. “You, of all people, know my great love for order, for things mechanized and with singular purpose” Lifting his eyes to the chained being before him, he shakes his head. “Why I thought I could bring order to Our purpose, I will never know. I could never see beyond my love of you...even when you were gone.” His face twists into a grimace of indescribable pain. “And in trying to create order from your vision of Chaos, I betrayed myself.”

_**"Thou art a traitor."** _

Mairon laughs, but it is unfettered, free and without care...if cold.

"You are so fixated upon the concept of coagulation...of Chaos" he scoffs. "I see now why Aulë thought you so dangerous, but you are not dangerous; you are eternally jealous of that which you cannot have. Tell me, was it an indication of _equanimity_ when you had me scourged before a horde of that which we made because I _waited_ for you to return when you were struck down by Tulkas? And was it _equanimity_ when you beheld the Silmarils above all else...above everything you could have had?” Trembling, his fea burning so bright in his rage he can barely contain it, Mairon continued. “And was it _equanimity_ when you told me that I was of greater worth than I could possibly imagine and went on only to show me how utterly _worthless_ I was?!”

Melkor will not look at him, and Mairon takes a kind of dark satisfaction in his avoidance of the truth...because it only solidifies his resolve.

“Aulë was right, you are not a Maker, but you are happy to let others make for you. You are all that is cold, all winter and steel and fire, my Lord, but beyond that you are empty. Equality of rule is not being so consumed by one another that one forgets who He is. That is slavery, and I bind myself in chains to no one.” Turning on heel to walk to another...darker section of the Halls, Mairon pauses but a moment to look over his shoulder. “I have no more to offer you, I am dead, _you_ are dead. If not in spirit, then in whatever purpose tied us to one another. If choosing to look beyond us and see myself is traitorism..."

"....Then I do not want to know what loyalty is."

* * *

_In the Halls of Mandossë,_   
_a star finds itself, in the grey of eternal blight._   
_It has lost its sense of wonder-_   
_-its Fëa torn asunder-_   
_-by his adoration of the night._

**Author's Note:**

>  **A/N:** Reading from compiled notes over the year here on this; my goal for this fic, when I started [which would again, be February 2020] was acknowledging the allure and value of this demi-pairing but also acknowledging the unhealthiness in it. a challenge I was given; mindfulness of certain factors, and at the very least, allowing for that to bleed into awareness not necessarily for both parties but for one party. 
> 
> on some gender ambiguities: had some issues with assigning a solid gender to characters but went with he/they. This isn’t to dismiss/toxify other alternatives [she/they, etc], but to keep things simplified. gender itself is not toxic, it’s the societal construct we have made of it that is toxic.
> 
>  **Edit:** if you're looking for a song rec for this...the only thing that comes to mind is 'Perfect Machine', by Starset, and only in the sense that that would be Melkor's attitude. Maybe 'Dear John' by Taylor Swift for Mairon *snorts* 
> 
> **Translations:** [v] Valarin [q] Quenya  
>  **Dušamanûðân Uruš-** [v] _Marred Flame_  
>  **Eä-** [q?] roughly, _be_  
>  **Aþāraphelūn Amanaišāl-** [v] _Arda Unmarred_  
>  **Melessë-** [q] _love_  
>  **rehtiëintyë-** [q] roughly, _'save yourself/thyself'_ , though I am somewhat reticent to say that this is accurate, as I struggled quite a bit with formation and possessives.  
>  ***** : this is from 'The Tempest' V1 by W. Shakespeare, and the translation is not mine. Here: https://www.forodrim.org/daeron/md_shakespeare.html many of the poetic phrases are demi-altered from forodrim when it comes to Quenya. 
> 
> *some translations will not be perfect, but they are as good as I can make them. 
> 
> Thanks for reading.


End file.
